Downtown

 

 

 

Downtown’s sidewalks hum with office workers and scooter-riding visitors, but they become noticeably more mobbed on weekend evenings and during the city’s headline-making festivals, like South by Southwest. The local joke is that the official bird of Austin is the construction crane.

 

 

Both tourists and business professionals are happily surrounded here by a full spectrum of fine restaurants, food trucks, and watering holes, particularly around Sixth Street and Rainey Street. And, as you would expect of the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World, there is an abundance of worthy nightlife venues. Most retail is centered around the 2nd Street District.

 

 

Downtown’s southern boundary kisses a shimmering stretch of the Colorado River. Urban dwellers (and their pups) enjoy the well-maintained trails along the river’s edge and fill the smooth waterway with a small flotilla of stand-up paddleboards and kayaks.

 

 

Single-family homes are the outliers here. Instead, downtown’s ballooning population has largely traded yards and rush-hour headaches for the horizon-scanning views and balconies of the many luxury high-rise buildings that have gone up in the last decade.

 

 

Unlike a lot of urban cores, Austin’s downtown is anything but staid. Just like the rest of the city, the vibe here is mellow and down-to-earth, as evidenced by the many friendly gathering spots and beer gardens, like the creekside Easy Tiger and the 1866 Scholz Garten.